Evidence for God from Science

Hi everyone, I recently saw this new article.... http://phys.org/news/2014-09-black-holes.html it claims that according to mathematics that black holes don't exist, and if this is found to be true then that could mean that the universe did NOT start as a singularity and that the Big Bang Theory and the BVG theorem could be in jeopardy, which of course could have implications for a major argument for God's existence. I was curious if any of you all have seen this and what your thoughts are on this theory and if you think it will hold up or be done away with soon. Anyways, thank you all for your time, GB.

Do a search newb.
http://discussions.godandscience.org/vi ... =6&t=39726

I have relatively little interest in the BBT, but I would certainly not agree that even if black holes don't exist that such would challenge the Kalam Cosmological Argument (which is the one I assume you are referring to). And I'll further note that I am not much of a fan of the KCA anyway. All the argument needs in support of its second premise (that the universe came into existence) is evidence in favor the an absolute beginning, which is not synonymous with beginning in a singularity. For even if singularities don't exit, it doesn't follow therefore that the universe always existed.

With that said, this is why I think we need to be careful how we present the KCA. You can either use it for what I think it really is, which is a scientific argument, or else you can attempt to use it as a demonstration. Frankly, I don't think it works as the latter, and I've explained why in some detail elsewhere. If, though, you want to use it as a scientific argument, you have to be ready to concede immediatly that future science may challenge the current theories. That does NOT mean that we cannot hold the current theories to be true and therefore draw reasonable inferences from them. It DOES mean that such theories, and thus our inferences, are always open to doubt and correction. BUT that means that they are open precisely to the degree that the theory is questionable. In other words, if someone wants to challenge your belief in God by attacking the KCA, they have to show that there is good evidence that the universe did NOT have a beginning. It is not enough to say, "Well, the theory might be wrong, so you can't prove it!" That fails as a counter argument, because what you can (and should) say is, "Of course the theory might be wrong, but we have no reason to think that it is. In fact, all of the evidence as we currently have it suggests X, and therefore, I am justified in holding X to be true unless and until contrary evidence is discovered. You, however, are not justified in saying that X is false unless and until you can provide evidence that it is false. Therefore, do you have any scientific evidence that the theory is false?"

Now, someday, someone might present just such an argument, and at that point, your argument would be refuted. But if the universe really DID begin in a singularity, then all such evidence will turn out to be wrong on inspection. If, though, the universe did NOT begin in a singularity, you do not want to base your faith in God on something that turns out not to be true, so here, in fact, you can thank the atheist for you doing you a service. In the meantime, I would remind you that showing blackholes do not exist is not sufficient to overturn the standard model of the BBT. Therefore, you are still warranted, scientifically speaking, in holding it to be true and drawing from it appropriate inferences (i.e., that the universe came into existence); and by extension, the atheist is UNWARRANTED, scientifically speaking, in rejecting it and thereby failing to draw appropriate inference (i.e., that the universe came into existence). And therefore, the atheist who rejects the argument is doing so on unwarranted, blind faith. And as they so very well know, you cannot argue with blind faith, so I would tell you not to bother with those who argue from such a stance (as most do, in my experience).

edit:

what Rick said

By the way, it's also worth noting that the paper is not peer reviewed and, again, that it doesn't not challene the BBT as such. At most, it challenges the current ideas about the formation of black holes (whether or not it can happen as a star collapses), not about their actual existence. I wouldn't make the HUGE leap from this non-peer-reviewed article to the-KCA-doesn't-work-anymore.

Jac3510 wrote:By the way, it's also worth noting that the paper is not peer reviewed and, again, that it doesn't not challene the BBT as such. At most, it challenges the current ideas about the formation of black holes (whether or not it can happen as a star collapses), not about their actual existence. I wouldn't make the HUGE leap from this non-peer-reviewed article to the-KCA-doesn't-work-anymore.

While it challenges the singularity, I agree with Jac that it does not challenge the BBT per se. Neither does it challenge the BVG theorem in any way. Where did you get that from DRDS? Certainly not from the article.

Theisticly speaking, the BBT is useful in proving that the universe was not always as is, that it had a beginning.
It doesn't really prove anything beyond that.
The BBt states that the universe started to expand 14 billion years ago and continues to expand.
It doesn't state HOW or WHY it expanded, only that it did.
The lack of BH and singularities means that the current POV that the universe started expanding from a singularity means that it must have STARTED via something else.
An argument COULD be made that this can strengthen the theistic POV.

I will wait what other scientists say on this. It's very new news.

Hugh Ross is somewhere standing by on a tall building's ledge, waiting and dreading. Or maybe he's just strategizing how he can "spin that!"

Not to mention: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/ ... -life.html

Hughie is having a bad week!

Philip wrote:Not to mention: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/ ... -life.html

Hughie is having a bad week!

The water on earth IS older than the sun . . . by four days.

Sorry, I couldn't resist,

Philip wrote:Not to mention: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/ ... -life.html

Hughie is having a bad week!


The water on earth IS older than the sun . . . by four days.

Sorry, I couldn't resist,

No doubt, Jac, no doubt! I figured I'd throw my YEC friends a little bone, there. But just wait until next week, the science will likely change.

And on a more serious note, as for what Moses intended to write, it's not as if he were a WITNESS to the events he wrote about. And so, again, He wrote what God intended - but what was the actual MEANING behind what God had Moses write? There are quite a few things in Scripture that were thought to mean one thing and yet later it was revealed that they meant another. Calvinist interpretations of Scripture come to mind.

And so what of the PURPOSES behind the Genesis texts meanings? Anyone who has not read the book, "In the Beginning, We Misunderstood by Dr. Johnny Miller," (http://www.amazon.com/In-Beginning-We-M ... roduct_top) might rethink what the purpose - and thus the use of "Day" - might well mean. Problem is, when we assume that it was about communicating a specific amount of time - IF that is wrong (and it well could be - whether it is of 24 hours or millions of years), then those thinking it explains both their scientific and theological understandings would be terribly wrong. And so there is good reason to doubt the YECinterpretation, because if you God was communicating to Moses to correct a people who had absorbed 400 years of generational teachings of the Pagan culture and false theological teacings of Egypt - that is, correcting their THEOLOGICAL misinformation and NOT their scientific understandings, then this changes everything!

And to explain the science of Creation to a pre-scientific culture that wouldn't be terribly significant, as it wouldn't have been understood - and so what would be the great significance of a time issue to the Israelites. Not much, I wouldn't imagine. I think that Miller has it right, that God was far more concerned about correcting their false beliefs concerning the creation myths surrounding the various Egyptian deities - and that our all-powerful God began and stands outside and in full control of His Creation, in great contrast to the Egyptian gods. The similarities - and stark contrasts of key Creation details (when the Egyptian and Genesis accounts are compared) - are just FAR too similar in many details for these to be an accident. I've seen two lectures by Dr. Miller at my church. And my pastor, a former student of Millers, while leaning toward a YEC position, is nonetheless at least open to what Miller is asserting. Miller affirms belief in the accuracy and truth of Scripture. Miller's is a very important book!

And I particularly find an examination of the Sixth Creation Day to make a literal 24-hour interpretation highly dubious: http://www.reasons.org/articles/the-six ... reationism I mean, the blur of activity would have had to have taken place amidst a miraculous orchestration of God with his finger on the cosmic DVD player's FF button - an unnatural / supernatural speeding up interpretation needed to accomodate a YEC view of the Genesis Creation accounts. Yet, examining all that is asserted by YECs to have taken place in a literal day just seems absurd. To a God for Whom time is a mere tool and a thousand years as is a day, and as patiently as He has let earth's human history unfold, doesn't it seem strange that He would have previously created through a vastly faster swirl of events? Was He in THAT big a hurry to see Adam and Eve blow it? If God so revelled in the Creation process - a Creation that He will care enough to restore and place His people in it for an eternity - wouldn't He savor the time spend during the process. Yes, I well realize that when we speak of God and time in the same sentence, we are often putting constraints on what He is actually capable of or revealing our mortal perspective of such. But that also works in various ways.

You can't distinguish between the "meaning" of the text and what Moses intended by what he wrote. To make that distinction is to allow for the idea that Moses was wrong about what he wrote, which is, as I noted before, to deny the Bible's basic nature as being divine revelation. After all, if Moses didn't know what he meant when he wrote, then how can we say that Paul or Matthew did? The eyewitness argument doesn't help because much of the old testament was written long after the events, and turning to the gospels, neither Luke nor Mark were around to see the events they wrote about, either (with the obvious exception of some parts of Acts).

As to the "blur of activity," I think there might be a bit of question begging going on there. If YEC is right, it's not just evolution that's wrong. It's the whole BBT, too. The "blur" is only there if you assume fourteen billion years of literal history. But that is precisely what is being denied. Just as much, the "why would God need to be in a hurry?" is equally question begging. On YEC, God isn't in a hurry at all. We just deny fourteen billion years of actual history. And if you want to insist on the argument, you should know that it cuts both ways. If you accuse YEC of being in a hurry, we could accuse OEC of making God need so much time. After all, if a day is as a thousand years, it is much more likely that God needs LESS time than you would think!

All in all, it's just a silly argument (no offense intended). If you are going to critique YEC, you need to be honest with the position and critique it within its own principles. Otherwise, you are just begging the question. When I critique OEC, that's exactly what I try to do. The one thing I find respectable about OEC (in theory) is that it claims to take the Bible literally. It isn't so silly as to attempt an allegorical interpretation, and it at least pretends to take Moses' intentions seriously. But my consistent point is that you can't be a consistent OEC and really hold that Moses intended the interpretational scheme Ross and others promote. Eventually, you have to end up using accommodationist principles and appealing to a distinction between God's meaning and Moses' meaning, and that before we get into clearly eisogetical arguments like using Psalms as an interpretive lens for Genesis 1. My point is that I can take OEC's stated hermeneutical principles and show how on those same principles OEC doesn't pan out. But your arguments don't give YEC that same benefit. You assume an OEC stance and use that stance to critique YEC, which is all but useless for furthering the discussion.

But it is late, and perhaps I've misread you. Feel free to correct me if I have!

edit:

And regarding the possibility that Moses was wrong on the age of the earth, but that was just accidental to what he was really teaching, you are, at best, suggesting an accommodationist hermeneutic, and that is very dangerous when applied elsewhere. You are basically permitting the teaching of a historical error for the sake of getting across an important theological truth, and that, in turn, just reduces the Bible to myth in the classical sense of the word. So, no, that's not permissible, and if that is the length that OEC advocates have to go to defend their position, then fine, but it should be sufficient proof for any and everyone who believes in the historical accuracy and infallibility of Scripture that OEC is not an acceptable interpretation of the biblical account of creation. But one again, it is late, and perhaps I've misread you!

Jac, when you read all the events packed in the the sixth day, it really doesn't seem anywhere near realistic. It's as if God packed all those things in as if He were running some cosmic speed dating session. And do you really think those prophetic references to the future Messiah in the Books of Moses were understood by him to be such? Just because He recorded such things, does not mean he completely understood their meanings. Did the Apostles realize "their"writings would become Scripture? Yes, Peter recognized Paul's teachings as Scripture - but, in general ... Even today, there is considerable and reasonable debate over the meanings of various prophetic passages. Do you think those that spoke or recorded such passages correctly understood them. Point is, just because various Bible figures wrote things, it certainly doesn't mean they correctly understood the meanings.

And if you look at what the Israelites understood just after coming out of Egypt, much of what they knew was learned from pagan culture. It makes sense that this was much of the purpose of Genesis - correcting the Israelites false pagan beliefs. Genesis echoes the Egyptian creation myths with such incredible similarities and parallels (albeit with stark contrasts, key differences, that would appear to be corrections), all centering around Yahweh), that it is entirely reasonable to think that the purposes were not to teach scientific understandings, but to correct false theological ones. And here's the thing, IF the thesis of Miller's book is true, it still doesn't make YEC false - or OEC - because the time issue likely wasn't the reason the wording is as it is. Because it may well not have even been about time - short or long, but corrections of wrongful theological understandings.

Jac, you really should read Miller's book. He's been a pastor, missionary and spent nine years as the president of the well-respected, theologically conservative CIU Bible college in Columbia, SC. And he originally was a strong YEC believer. Dr. Miller's co-writer, Dr. John M. Soden: He's a professor in the Bible and Theology Department of Lancaster Bible College, specializing in Old Testament studies, a position he held since 1998. He has taught on both the undergrad and graduate levels in all of the Old Testament as well as hermeneutics and some pastoral ministries. Previously he was pastor of Arriola Bible Church near Cortez, Colorado for over 9 years. His Ph.D. degrees are from Dallas Theological Seminary emphasizing Semitics and OT studies.

"And I will make thy seed to multiply as the stars of heaven, and will give unto thy seed all these countries; and in thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed;"

Do you really think Moses understood what this meant, that such passages referred to the Messiah, God in the flesh? And did Moses HAVE to understand what God wanted Him to record, to do so? How much have other prophets of God understood about the meaning of their prophecies. Think about that. And think how much we read Genesis with a 21st century pair of glasses and sensibilities.

It's late, gotta be up in about four hours!

Take particular note of the edit at the beginning in this article.

http://www.fromquarkstoquasars.com/new- ... ack-holes/